Thanks Moyekj, But last time I looked many channels were not working but I will check tonight.

Make sure that you try rebooting your TiVo to get the cards to update their channel map. If a warm restart doesn't work, unplug it and plug it back in.

Both Cox and Comcast were kind of hanging back on the SDV thing (whilst TWC tears into it with a vengeance), with two or three test markets each. Cox has been upgrading from 750MHz to 1GHz bandwidth, so if they use it all for new HD services, they can add about 40 new ones before resorting to SDV (they can't use the new bandwidth above 870MHz for television programming to be received by either their deployed leased boxes or retail QAM tuners). They've just about finished their 1GHz conversion here in San Diego; I'd be surprised if they weren't doing the same up there in OC.

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Mike Scott

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That's interesting. We're not in an AT&T market, so I haven't researched the specifics of Uverse, but that's good to know (my in-laws are moving to an area that is serviced by AT&T and supposed to get Uverse in the near future according to AT&T). Any idea if that's a surmountable issue that they tend to rectify in the foreseeable future?

As to their plans, I couldn't tell you, but yes there are a number of ways the situation could be alleviated. Which one they might eventually choose...???

Still nothing concrete about Scientific Atlanta, though. Of course, even then, I doubt our local TW office would have the rest of the equipment installed that would be necessary for the device to work.

Still nothing concrete about Scientific Atlanta, though. Of course, even then, I doubt our local TW office would have the rest of the equipment installed that would be necessary for the device to work.

What "rest of the equipment"? If your system is using one of the version of SDV that TWC is deploying on its S-A networks, then one assumes that the only equipment necessary for TiVo to tune those services is a Tuning Adapter by S-A (or anyone else for that matter) which knows how to speak the protocols TWC is using to implement SDV. No other equipment is necessary to make the network work with the Tuning Adapter.

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Mike Scott

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I'd recommend that people visit the HD Guru article on SDV (where Gary Merson recently revealed the "SDV crisis" to his readers at this amazingly late date ). Search the page for "Mike Schwartz" and read his reply. Schwartz is apparently with CableLabs and responds to and "corrects" Merson's blog post from that point of view.

I'd make several corrections to his corrections. For instance, he says:

Quote:

The cable industry defined and delivered the required removable security CableCARDs (at the time called POD modules) by the July 2000 deadline after investing millions in the project. However since there was no mandate by the FCC on consumer products, there were no retail products produced to make use of CableCARDs.

First off, the deadline was July 2004--the regulation requiring it was added by FCC 03-225, issued on 10 September 2003. Second, it was a chicken-and-egg situation--there was certainly no rush for any CE manufacturer to produce CableCARD compliant products before consumers could get CableCARDs from their cable provider.

Later, Schwartz says:

Quote:

Unfortunately many CE companies chose to implement receivers that lack the necessary circuitry to provide a full two-way cable experience with the CableCARD. Since those unidirectional receivers are not able to support many of the advanced features and services available on digital cable systems today, the FCC had enough foresight to mandate that the manufacturer properly label the product accordingly so that consumers of these products are not disappointed. If the consumer is dissatisfied with he limited functionality of those sets, they should complain to the manufacturer.

Though there was a bidirectional communications standard specified in ANSI/SCTE 26 2004 which the manufacturers could have implemented, it went hand in hand with a set of interactive services which the cable providers declined to implement, so if the OEMs had gone to the expense of implementing two way comm in products back in the 2004-2005 model year when they introduced CableCARD compliant products, no cable system in the country would have been offering any service which could listen or respond to anything that a bidirectional CableCARD host might have to say. I guess that they could have implemented a useless backchannel anyway, but it seems questionable whether CableLabs would have certified a device with a pointless ability to talk back to the network.

Quote:

Notwithstanding the lack of precedent in the 1996 Telecom Act, the FCC moved to ban the use of “integrated” security in Cable operator set-top boxed in the name of “common reliance” (which phrase does not appear anywhere in the law or regulations); Cable Operators would have to use separable CableCARDs instead. This requirement was enforced as of July 2007, forcing the cable industry to pay over $600 million to redesign their set-top-box products in a way that offers no benefit to subscribers. The cable industry met this requirement and in the 9 months since has successfully deployed over 4,184,000 operator-supplied set-top boxes with CableCARDs (recall the CE industry has only produced about 347,000 units to date)

Please--that last sentence is just libel. The CE industry has produced over 10 million undirectional CableCARD products. Apparently, only 347,000 CableCARDs have been leased to use in them (remember that some of them, like our beloved TiVos, use two CableCARDs each); we have only the cable providers' word on that number.

It should also be noted that the cable industry dragged their feet on complying with the integrated security ban as hard as they possibly could. The original deadline was July 2005; they were given a 2 year extension over the loud objection of the CE industry. As they approached the end of that extension, they begged for more time, which they were denied.

Everyone has their point of view .

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Mike Scott

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I guess that they could have implemented a useless backchannel anyway, but it seems questionable whether CableLabs would have certified a device with a pointless ability to talk back to the network.

Well, TiVo included M-card support in the S3 before there was a way of testing that...and look where that got.

In truth the whole one-way thing was a very bad idea forced to come into being for this abortive short term period because of all the damn fighting and foot dragging without FCC kicking any butt over 2 way.

I had some rather thin correspondance with Schwartz which indicated to me there was not exactly much activity on the dongle front by various companies. I can only guess TiVo attended the interop a couple weeks ago, and of course we know from original souce (Mari) Motorola had "success." (whatever that means and whether that was the production model is not stated.)

As for TiVo, will they not have to write drivers for each TR like they do with USB-ethernet adapters?

"availability" is a complex word with many factors and possible definitions...

No other equipment is necessary to make the network work with the Tuning Adapter.

The whole idea is that the adapter behaves like any other cable company's set-top box on a given system. The head end doesn't have to have any special knowledge about the adapter; it's just another set-top box making SDV requests. In fact, the Motorola adapter seems to BE a modified low-end set-top box.

The whole idea is that the adapter behaves like any other cable company's set-top box on a given system. The head end doesn't have to have any special knowledge about the adapter; it's just another set-top box making SDV requests. In fact, the Motorola adapter seems to BE a modified low-end set-top box.

You still have to likely register the Box ID in your account. Hopefully they won't consider it yet another digital outlet for which they will charge you a monthly fee for in addition to whatever they are going to do for the hardware rental.

As for TiVo, will they not have to write drivers for each TR like they do with USB-ethernet adapters?

No--one of the purposes of the Tuning Adapter is to normalize the interface (the other purpose being to give access to the backchannel to hosts with unidirectional CC interfaces). TiVo only talks and listens to the Tuning Adapter through its USB interface, and every Tuning Adapter talks exactly the same language through that interface. The Tuning Adapters also exchange messages with the cable network through backchannel communications over the coax; when TiVo makes a request of the network, the TA's job is to convert that into terms of the specific network's SDV system and send the appropriate message out over the backchannel; when the reply is received from the network, it's converted into a message in the TA USB connection protocol and passed on to TiVo.

It's a bit like being in the United Nations--a participant there just talks into his or her microphone and listens to responses as rendered into English (or whatever his or her language is) by translators, without having to consider what languages the people who give those responses are actually speaking.

CableCARD itself is similar; CableCARDs manufactured by Motorola and SA deal with different proprietary encryption schemes used on the wire (Motorola's DigiCipher and SA's PowerKey), decrypting content received in those proprietary formats and re-encrypting it using the open standard DFAST system to be passed back over the CableCARD host interface. CableCARDs in bidirectional host devices can send messages on behalf of the host, passed to the CableCARD by the host device using an ANSI/SCTE standard API; the CableCARD repackages such messages for transmission as appropriate for whatever vendor's host network they're operating on.

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Mike Scott

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I don't believe the TR will be viewed as another device but take on the personality of the host device to which it speaks for.

The network will probably have some awareness of the Tuning Adapters as a separate entities, since it will probably be able to download firmware upgrades into them. Beyond that, I'd think that the interaction between the network and the TR would be indistinguishable from the network performing SDV negotiations with a leased cable STB. Those interactions are vendor-proprietary and explicitly not in within the scope of the OpenCable Tuning Resolver Interface Specification, so they could be as aware or unaware of the existence of the Tuning Adapter as the vendor cares to make them.

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Mike Scott

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No--one of the purposes of the Tuning Adapter is to normalize the interface (the other purpose being to give access to the backchannel to hosts with unidirectional CC interfaces). TiVo only talks and listens to the Tuning Adapter through its USB interface, and every Tuning Adapter talks exactly the same language through that interface.

The network will probably have some awareness of the Tuning Adapters as a separate entities, since it will probably be able to download firmware upgrades into them. Beyond that, I'd think that the interaction between the network and the TR would be indistinguishable from the network performing SDV negotiations with a leased cable STB.

Hmm, that makes me wonder if the cableCARDS and the TA will talk to each other somehow. Currently if you bring up the cableCARD menus on the TiVo, the cards report that the device they are connected to does not have two way capabilities and that there is no associated IP address. After the TA is installed would this update to indicate that there is a two way interface or is it still considered one way from the card's perspective?

Although it will operate with different SDV platforms, the STA-1520 will work only on systems that use the Cisco digital cable platform.

That's interesting. Must be programmable on the network side. I guess if a cable provider plans to buy some tens of thousands of these things, customizing it to his particular brand of SDV isn't that much to ask.

It's great news, though, inasmuch as TWC, the prime purveyor of SDV, is on Cisco networks. So many people in these forums have been freaking out because there'd been no press release on development of an SA compatible product.

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Mike Scott

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It's still fascinating to me that people--on a TiVo forum no less--seem to have such a hard-on for VOD. Personally it doesn't bother me that it exists, but it's irrelevant to me because I have a DVR. I can't imagine I'm part of some tiny minority, especially since everyone I know and work with seems to have one, too, and has had for quite a while. If I'm 10 minutes late getting to my favorite shows or am on a date or running errands or whatever, it doesn't affect me. Only selected programming is available on VOD anyway, and other than the novelty factor of being able to order up Showtime late-night soft-core on a whim when I first got the service, it's of little use.

That could be because the content available over VOD is also available over normal channels. VOD is currently primarily a way to re-access content that has already been transmitted. If, however, VOD is used to provide first-access to content that is no being transmitted on another channel, which is how many envision VOD to untimately develop, then your DVR becomes a hindrance to the access of VOD content.

This shift to SDV (which exists to save bandwidth on less veiwed channels) is driven (my opinion) by the current idustry structure of "channels" being owned by people who aggregate themed content (example -Food Network). This is an old paradigm - the content aggregators ("channels") were required to bundled themed content and sell targeted advertising into the gaps between the shows.

The apparent new model (content owners themselves providing content in single bites for a fee) removes the aggregator (TV channel) and is more appropriate to the VOD delivery model. The internet & IP transmission technology, the low cost of video blogging, the eruption of youtube, etc - all point to a more self-serve model that individualizes content aggregation. Note that the biggest adopters of VOD so far have been those companies not reliant on the aggragator-that-enbeds-commericals business model - HBO, Movie releases, etc.

Tis shift is already being seen in a small way on the Tivo platform - GeekbriefTV, CNET for Tivo, NYTimes movie reviews, etc - all these are essentially the first wave of post-TV-channel VOD.

As DVRs kill off the commercial they necessarily pave the way for their own destruction *unless* they are also equipped to survive in a post-commerical world. And post-commerical means a lage number of marginal chaneels will die, and their content will have to be VOD to survive that event.

If, however, VOD is used to provide first-access to content that is no being transmitted on another channel, which is how many envision VOD to untimately develop, then your DVR becomes a hindrance to the access of VOD content.

That's actually already being done. There are a number of programs on Comcast's VOD that are only available through VOD.

Virtually no one offers VOD unless it's SDV. It would be network suicide to do so, even on a small scale. I don't know for certain - sometimes businessmen do stupid things, but I strongly suspect there are no CATV systems anywhere which offer anything as VOD which is not SDV. Some systems may offer Howard as linear pay-per-view, in which case it would not have the network impact of a linear VOD channel, but there's a big difference between linear IPPV and non-SDV VOD.

Virtually no one offers VOD unless it's SDV. It would be network suicide to do so, even on a small scale. I don't know for certain - sometimes businessmen do stupid things, but I strongly suspect there are no CATV systems anywhere which offer anything as VOD which is not SDV.

Far, far from the truth.

__________________Comcast, Cox, TW, Charter and BHN are cabal companies.
(That is not a spelling error. Check the definition.)

Virtually no one offers VOD unless it's SDV. It would be network suicide to do so, even on a small scale. I don't know for certain - sometimes businessmen do stupid things, but I strongly suspect there are no CATV systems anywhere which offer anything as VOD which is not SDV. Some systems may offer Howard as linear pay-per-view, in which case it would not have the network impact of a linear VOD channel, but there's a big difference between linear IPPV and non-SDV VOD.

Wow, how far wrong could this statement be?

Since SDV is just getting launched, are you saying no one had any VOD prior to now?

Maybe there was just a mis-use of terms or something but you couldn't have meant what it seems.

Irhorer is correct. Most VOD systems use 4 qams for VOD delivery. The VOD system and cable box determine which qam is available and starts the stream. You can start 4 different movies in a row and have it stream on 4 different frequencies. This system has been around for a long time.

Irhorer is correct. Most VOD systems use 4 qams for VOD delivery. The VOD system and cable box determine which qam is available and starts the stream. You can start 4 different movies in a row and have it stream on 4 different frequencies. This system has been around for a long time.

When we refer to SDV we are talking about the system just being launched that switches broadcast video. While it is true that VOD dynamically gets assigned to QAMs, we really don't call that SDV.

What lrhorer is saying is that VOD is a form of switched video which has been in use far longer than this fairly new "sharing-a-pool-of-bandwidth-on-a-network-edge-segment-between-many-linear-video-services" trick. No doubt modern systems use switching to implement scheduled pay-per-view as well--if no one in an edge segment has ordered a pay-per-view program, no bandwidth is used for that program on that segment. However, referring to VOD and IPPV as SDV, while it may be essentially true, is cheap semantic BS. The terms "switched video" and "switched digital video" are now exclusively used to refer to the "sharing-a-pool-of-bandwidth-on-a-network-edge-segment-between-many-linear-video-services" trick. When you find SDV in the tech literature today, that's what they're talking about, even though VOD and IPPV are provided using video switching. Maybe they should have come up with a brief three-or-four word phrase to describe "sharing-a-pool-of-bandwidth-on-a-network-edge-segment-between-many-linear-video-services" (maybe "shared bandwidth linear video", though that would describe IPPV as well ), but the fact is that they didn't--they co-opted the term "switched digital video" to mean specifically that.

It's similar to the way that, when people refer to "Americans" in common speech, they're talking about citizens of the United States of America, and not Canadians or Mexicans or Brazillians, even though those people also live on the continents of North and South America.

The discussion in this thread is about "non-PPV shared bandwidth linear video", the increasing use of which is a large problem for TiVo Series3 and TiVo HD users, who never expected to be able to access VOD or IPPV content with TiVo. Using the term "SDV" as an umbrella term for all services which involve video switching doesn't make any useful point and only serves to confuse the conversation and annoy people.

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Mike Scott

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